It turned out that Erikson was right about that.
Wilson and I could have been a pair of rivets in a bulkhead for all the attention we received from the crew. Even at mess we sat alone at one end of a long table. It was as though we had a disease. It might have been my nerves, but the hearty meal tasted like different shapes and colors of pablum.
All except the coffee.
It’s true what they say about Navy coffee.
It was the best I’d had in years.
We went back to the crew’s quarters after the meal and I stretched out on a bunk. Wilson took the one above mine. The compartment was dimly lighted by only a couple of bare bulbs protected by heavy-gauge wire. I had heard the crew talking about going to watch a movie on another part of the ship. There were just a couple of sailors in the sleeping quarters with us, and they paid no attention.
I couldn’t sleep, although I felt tired. The movement of the sea had picked up after dark. The gentle rocking at sunset had increased to a constant undulation. I was trying to shake off my queasy stomach and make a serious effort at sacking out when there were footsteps on the ladder and a flashlight shined in my face. “Commander wants to see you,” the messenger announced.
He prodded Wilson with the flashlight and roused him with the same words. Chico had been sleeping soundly, and he hit the steel deck sleepily. “What’s it about?” he asked.
“How long have you swabs been out of boot camp?” the sailor sneered. “Follow me.” I remembered one of Erikson’s dictums. In the military don’t ask questions.
We climbed the ladder with the sailor in the lead. On deck the wind hit me in the face. It was blowing hard enough to force its way down my throat. The ship’s motion was much more pronounced on deck, and I had to hold on to a handrail as I made my way along the deck behind the messenger. The wind carried to us the hissing sound of the knifelike bow of the destroyer ramming its way through the running sea. Where the moon should have been there was only an obscure light behind heavy cloud cover.
The guide tugged open a heavy steel door and we went down a narrow passage until he stopped in front of a wooden cabin door. He knocked sharply twice. “Come in!” Erikson’s voice said.
I was relieved to hear that it was Erikson. When the messenger said “commander,” I thought he meant the ship’s commander. Wilson and I entered the cabin. The messenger remained outside. With the cabin door closed, there was barely enough room for us to stand in front of a small desk behind which Erikson sat. “At ease, men!” he said in a strong voice. I realized that it was pitched to carry out into the passageway. If Wilson had been any more at ease, he’d have fallen over sideways. We both should have been standing at ramrod-stiff attention.
“I’m supposed to be questioning you about the fracas on deck with Slater,” Erikson said quietly. “Making up my mind whether I want to press charges. An investigating officer has to be appointed, so if I, as a lieutenant commander, want to instigate proceedings, it will have to be a man of higher rank than if Chief McMillan puts the bee on Slater.”
Wilson hitched a leg onto a corner of Erikson’s desk. “Don’t you think—” he began, then became aware that Erikson was glaring at the leg. Wilson slowly removed it. Erikson was playing the game for all it was worth, but after what had happened, I could hardly blame him. “It’d be good if you’re the one to gig Slater,” Wilson began over again. “That way it’ll give you a chance to drop the charges later an’ have Slater released to you.”
“There are two problems,” Erikson answered. “First, I have to convince the chief to let me press the charges. I don’t think that will be too difficult. McMillan is burned up enough at Slater for making him look foolish in front of the crew that he wants the book thrown at him. The chief is apt to think I’m better able to lower the boom.”
“You said there were two problems,” I mentioned.
Erikson grimaced. “The plan would work if the destroyer were going to tie up at Gitmo only overnight. At dinner tonight, though, the skipper told me they’ll be anchored there for a week.”
There was a short silence.
“So?” Wilson said at last.
“So I’m playing it by ear.”
I don’t know how much sleep Wilson got the balance of the night in the narrow bunk of the rolling, pitching destroyer, but I didn’t get much.
CHAPTER TEN
We disembarked at Guantanamo in the dark and in a driving rainstorm. The lights of the base were almost obliterated in the sheets of tropical rain. “They don’t get too much rain here as a rule,” Erikson observed before we left the destroyer. “The hills usually divert even the hurricanes.”
“Just our luck to catch a good one,” Wilson groused.
The transient barracks chief was unhappy to see us. Grumbling, he slipped on his poncho and led us to a two-story temporary building. From his remarks we learned that he had been up before during the night bedding down a load of replacements who had made it to the base in a four-engine Navy transport from Parris Island just before the bad weather closed down the airfield.
“Grab any unoccupied bunk,” the chief told us. “And fall in with the replacements in the A.M. when they’re called to chow.”
He went off and left us. From where we stood inside the entrance, I could see forty-odd sailors and marines sacked in while they awaited assignment to permanent quarters. “Let’s try the second deck,” Wilson suggested. “Might be less traffic.” When we climbed the stairs, we found out it was true. We staked out a corner at the far end of the building to avoid as much contact as possible.
Erikson had told us to get some rest because it would be late afternoon before he could get back to us. I slept most of the morning, skipping breakfast when the mess call came. After lunch the time really dragged. Wilson pulled out a deck of cards and we played gin rummy for a quarter a game. Chico had no card sense and lost consistently. Then he began to cheat flagrantly with no improvement in his results. I called off the game finally.
When four o’clock arrived with no sign of Erikson, I began to get edgy. Outside, the storm was worse. Thick, low-hanging clouds pressed close to the ground and all but blotted out the rocky hills. The constant drumming of the rain on the roof just above our heads was getting to me. By five o’clock I could see lights burning all over the base through the rain-streaked windows.
Wilson had just laid down on his bunk when a raucous voice thundered up the stair well. “All you swabbies up there on the second deck — fall out for work detail! Report down here in fatigues and ponchos in two minutes! On the double!”
“We’d better go,” Wilson said after momentary indecision. He rolled off the bunk. “If that joker checks and finds us here, we’d have to answer too many questions.”
“But how will Erikson find us?”
Wilson shrugged. “You’re in the Navy now,” he said with a fine edge of sarcasm in his voice.
I followed him, since I could see no way to avoid it. We reached the lower floor while a loud-voiced Marine sergeant was forming the transients into a ragged line stretching down the barracks aisle. We fell in at the far end. “Get aboard the trucks outside!” the sergeant shouted. “You’ll be taken to Warehouse number seven to load sandbags. File out and load. MOVE!”
“Somethin’ must’ve busted loose,” Wilson observed. The ranks ahead of us began to bottleneck at the door as the first departures flinched in the face of the storm. The sergeant’s bull voice got them moving again. A surging mass of rain-slicked backs went up over the tail gates of the tarpaulined 6x6 trucks as if prodded by hot irons. The headlights of an approaching pickup spotlighted the red-faced sergeant just as Wilson and I ran out into the salt- seasoned rain.
“These two belong to me, Sergeant!” Erikson’s welcome voice boomed from the pickup. The Marine took in the visor-peaked cap with rain protector beneath which could be seen the commissioned officer’s insignia. He saluted and turned to the trucks. Wilson and I started to pile into the pickup. “Go back and get your gear,” Erikson instructed us. “And step on it.”
